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Hops and Routes

Recently I have had the number of hops change from 18 to 14 regarding a 2 specific servers. My ping was less then half what it was for that day. Now it has gone back to 18 and 19 hops again and my ping is back up. I was wondering if there is any way to direct my route to the server and why if i can get there in 14 my route decided to change to 19 again. Having this cable connection is like buying a fast car and not being able to drive it. there must be some way of altering my route without changing my ISP.
And if you could please explain to me how and why the route is selected the way it is.

Routes are not necessarily that scientific, and are usually created automatically by advertising. A router, needing to know how to get to abc.com, asks, and the routers it connects to reply with how many hops it will take them to get to the destination. The router then picks the smallest number.

Would buying a router help me too find a faster route?
And what happened to the 14 hop route i had a day ago where did it go and why does someone with dsl have a connection ping half the size of mine even though they live 3 hours furthe away then me (wich shouldnt make much diff but... if anything i should be pinging better? If my modem (or whatever it is hehe) looks for the fastest route, is it possible that it is flawed and if so can i fix it? Most of all im just interested in why the fastest route is not being used for i know there is one that is twice as fast.

Your modem only looks for the router directly connected to it. There is nothing you can do to affect the path a packet takes unless you have a VPN to the target.

Simply said, no, its not like driving a car, you cant pick which way you go once you leave your driveway. More like a pachinko ball, it is going to go from the top to the bottom, finding its own best path, but unless something blocks it, it is going to get there.

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